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(Reuters) – About half of Republicans believe President Donald Trump “rightfully won” the US election, but was stolen by widespread election fraud that favored Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, according to a new opinion poll by Reuters / Ipsos.
The opinion poll from November 13-17 showed that Trump’s outspoken defiance of Biden’s victory in both the popular vote and the Electoral College appears to be affecting the public’s confidence in American democracy, especially among Republicans.
In total, 73% of those surveyed agreed that Biden won the election, while 5% thought Trump won. But when specifically asked if Biden had “won legitimately,” Republicans showed they were suspicious of how Biden’s victory was obtained.
52% of Republicans said Trump “won legitimately,” while only 29% said Biden won legitimately.
When asked why, Republicans were far more concerned than others that state vote counters had tilted the result toward Biden: 68% of Republicans said they were concerned the election was “rigged,” while only the 16% of Democrats and a third of independents were. equally concerned.
Even before winning the 2016 election, Trump kept up a complaining beat about the process, claiming without evidence that it was unfair to him.
Since Biden racked up enough electoral votes to win the White House on November 7, Trump has stepped up that criticism and told his supporters that he is the victim of widespread illegal voting.
Trump has not provided any proof of his claims, and yet he has not been able to back them up in court. Republicans announced this week that they would drop federal electoral demands in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The poll showed that more Americans seem more suspicious of the American electoral process than four years ago.
Overall, 55% of adults in the United States said they believed the November 3 presidential election to be “legitimate and accurate,” representing a 7-point decrease compared to a similar poll conducted shortly after. of the 2016 elections. The 28% who said they thought the election was “the result of illegal voting or electoral fraud” is up 12 points from four years ago.
The poll showed that Republicans were much more likely to be suspicious of Trump’s defeat this year than Democrats when Hillary Clinton lost four years ago.
In 2016, 52% of Democrats said Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump was “legitimate and accurate,” even as reports surfaced of Russian attempts to influence the outcome. This year, only 26% of Republicans said they thought Trump’s loss was equally legitimate.
The Reuters / Ipsos survey was conducted online, in English, across the United States. It collected responses from 1,346 respondents, including 598 Democrats and 496 Republicans, and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 5 percentage points.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn, editing by Ross Colvin and Sonya Hepinstall)
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